


What's in a Name?

by freyjawriter24



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Human, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-08-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:46:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25676062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freyjawriter24/pseuds/freyjawriter24
Summary: Aziraphale’s name is one that just never gets spelt right. He’s gotten used to that fact, and even made a game out of it, going into different coffee shops to see how ridiculous the baristas’ spellings come out.But one day he ends up with something he really didn’t expect.Crowley.***The fic affectionately saved on my laptop as ‘coffee cup au’. Originally inspired by a chat in the GO Events discord server.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 15
Kudos: 94





	What's in a Name?

**Author's Note:**

> I finally wrote a coffee shop AU! Thank you to everyone on the discord server who inadvertently spurred me on to write this.
> 
> Title is thanks to the wonderful [Faye](https://archiveofourown.org/users/isleofsolitude), and is from Shakespeare's _Romeo and Juliet_ : "What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet".

It had started, as these things often do, by accident.

It had been amusing, the first time the cup had come back with the wrong name. ‘Azirafale’ wasn’t terribly incorrect, and there was no point in pointing it out to a barista who would in all likelihood never see him again, so he just sipped his drink and ignored it.

The second time, months later and at a different coffee shop in a different city, it had come back as ‘Asirafail’. That was slightly more upsetting, but again, there was no reason to tell anyone. The cup had gotten to the right person, and that was the important thing. So he drank his drink and moved on.

The third time, however, had been a deliberate test. He was in a new city with half an hour to spare, and he’d specifically sought out one of the chains where they wrote your name on the cup, just to see what they’d put. It was ‘Zirafayle’ that time, which was new. He almost liked that one.

And so it had become a game.

Every new place he went, every new coffee shop he came across, Aziraphale went in, gave his name, and waited to see what spelling would come back to him. He kept a record of the results in his little notebook – shop location, date, and spelling. There were tens of them in there now, well on the way to a hundred. He’d had a few repeats, but mostly they were unique, and that was what impressed him most. The sheer variety of misspellings that his name apparently generated in the general population. Or, at least, the general _barista_ population.

‘Azirafail’. ‘Assirafale’. ‘Azeeraphale’. ‘Zirafell’. ‘Aserafel’.

Once, he even got ‘Azrael’.

He never went back to the same shop twice. That was part of the game: as many different places – and therefore baristas – as possible were needed for this particular experiment, and repeat visits would just complicate the results. He wasn’t exactly a regular drinker of such beverages anyway, so he had no regular haunt – the game was the only reason he bothered going. Same place meant no game, so no point in getting a drink at all. Simple as that.

He hadn’t quite counted on Crowley.

* * *

“Afternoon, what can I get for you today?”

“The, ah, ruby hot chocolate, if you please.”

“Sure. Small, medium, or large?”

“Medium. And, ah, in a takeaway cup, please.”

“Course. Anything else?”

“No, thank you.”

Aziraphale didn’t pay much attention to the barista. He had a meeting in just over half an hour, one that had required a lot of paperwork to be brought with him, and he was struggling with shuffling around everything he was holding so he could get to his wallet.

The price popped up on the little screen, and Aziraphale recovered his card in time to tap it to the contactless panel.

“Thank you very much. You can grab a seat or wait for your drink at the end of the counter – my colleague will bring it to you.”

The barista who had taken his order gestured vaguely in the direction of a young woman with large glasses and long dark hair pulled back in a looped bun. She looked up in time to catch Aziraphale’s eye and smiled, all bright customer service attitude. He returned the smile a little belatedly as she went back to wiping nozzles and pouring liquids and pressing buttons on the fancy machine she was working at, moving with practised speed and ease.

Aziraphale turned back to the person who had served him, to say thank you before moving on, and actually saw him for the first time. Vivid red hair fell in waves down to his shoulders, the front section pulled back into a little bun to keep it out of his face. He was wearing sunglasses – even though he was indoors and at work, which was a little odd – and a small black snake tattoo was curled up beside his right ear.

_Oh,_ Aziraphale thought to himself. _This must be one of those – what do they call it? –_ hipster _places._

He thanked the snake-man and made his way over to a table, relieved to finally be able to put everything he was carrying down. _Going paperless really would make life an awful lot easier,_ he grumbled internally. Why on Earth Gabriel kept insisting he wouldn’t be able to handle the technology was beyond him. He really wasn’t _that_ old.

It was only when Aziraphale was completely settled in his seat that he realised the barista had never asked him for a name.

_Oh, bother._ Maybe it wasn’t one of those places after all. He thought he’d seen someone coming out of the shop with a named takeaway cup, but perhaps they’d just been walking past. Coffee shops were everywhere around here – it would be just his luck that he’d chosen the one place where they _didn’t_ misspell your name on your cup. _No game today, then._

_Oh, well._ Aziraphale checked his pocket watch, and found he still had half an hour to go. Plenty of time to sip at his drink and walk the two minutes it would take to get to the office he was heading for. He’d already scoped out the location to make sure he wouldn’t get lost, which meant now he had time to truly relax for a few moments.

He popped open the briefcase at his side and retrieved his current book. Before opening it and getting lost in the old favourite, he took the time to have a good look round the place.

It was a nice little café – independent, by the looks of it. Every chair was different, lending a quirky, eclectic quality to the general aesthetic. The drinks area, where the two baristas were taking orders and crafting treats, was entirely framed by shiny black tiles, sleek and smooth and matched beautifully to the silver drinks machine and sandwich toaster and fridge. But the rest of the walls in the place were a simple grey, decorated by an interestingly random assortment of pictures and knickknacks which added flashes of colour in just the right places.

Aziraphale’s little table was up against a wall, and above him was a portrait-oriented painting framed in an unnecessarily extravagant gold frame. At first glance, the scene seemed to be of a nondescript neat house with a large garden, all prettily done up with flowers bordering the lawn and external walls painted white. Upon closer inspection, however, it became apparent that down one of the side walls of the house, there was a different story – some graffiti was visible, bold against the white, and a small child was huddled against the wall, wrapped in a blanket and clearly homeless. The frame of the painting, Aziraphale realised, was in fact a little imperfect, the gold paint patchy and scratched. He wondered whether it was actually part of the artwork.

“Ruby hot chocolate for you?”

The question surprised Aziraphale out of his thoughts and he turned to see the dark-haired barista smiling at him, holding out a takeaway cup.

“Ah, yes, thank you.” He took the offered drink from her and nodded towards the painting. “This is an interesting one.”

“It’s called ‘Focus’, I believe,” she said, taking the opportunity to look at the painting for a moment herself. “It’s a command, like ‘pay attention’, but also it’s asking you to look at what’s in focus and what’s not, I think.”

“Ah, that explains why it’s in portrait, then, not landscape.”

The barista looked at him, surprised, then looked back at the painting. “Huh, yes! You’re right. I hadn’t noticed that before. It’s framing the kid, not the house.”

Her accent was American, but it wasn’t one he could easily pin-point – not hard Texan or stereotypically New York. Aziraphale wondered what she was doing working at a hipster café in London.

“I like it,” Aziraphale said slowly. “It’s not the kind of thing I’d particularly like looking at on my wall every day, but I suppose that’s partly the point.”

“Yeah, definitely.” She smiled again, then gave a small wave and turned to go.

Aziraphale glanced down absent-mindedly at the cup, ready to prise the lid off to help it cool faster.

He froze.

“Excuse me?” he called after the retreating barista. She paused and turned back to him.

“Mm-hmm?”

Aziraphale gestured helplessly at the cup. “What...?”

“Oh, yeah.” She moved back over for a moment. “It’s a Crowley thing. He likes putting descriptions or word associations on the cups rather than names. ‘Cool tie’, ‘pink hair’, ‘unicorn girl’, that kind of thing. I found it annoying at first, but I’ve literally never had any problem finding anyone based on what he writes, so at least it works.”

“Right...” Aziraphale felt slightly winded. He looked back over at the counter, where the red-haired barista – Crowley – was currently taking the order of a harried-looking woman and her two children.

“Everything okay?”

Aziraphale nodded weakly. The young woman left, making her way back to the counter to start making the new arrivals’ orders. Aziraphale stared at the redhead at the till.

Crowley’s expression was unreadable from this distance, what with the sunglasses and all. There was no way to tell whether he knew Aziraphale was looking at him, no way of knowing whether he was looking back. Aziraphale wasn’t sure whether or not he wanted him to.

He looked back at his drink. The takeaway cup sat there, unremarkable in all features but one, completely unaware of the way it had just tipped Aziraphale’s world sideways. He stared at the word written there, in bold yet scratchy capital letters.

‘Angel’.

**Author's Note:**

> If you've never had ruby hot chocolate (or ruby chocolate full stop), I highly recommend - it's fruity, sweet, and pink!


End file.
